Posted on 04/20/2008 9:08:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A line for the 7:10 p.m. premiere showing of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" at the Varsity II theater on Lincoln Way stretched back five storefronts to the Bali Satay House Friday.
The documentary film, narrated by actor and former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein, explores the relationship between science and religion in academia, juxtaposing images of the Berlin Wall with footage shot for the film to suggest scientific freedom is being stifled by hostile views toward religion.
It features interviews with Guillermo Gonzalez, assistant professor in astronomy at Iowa State University, who claims he was denied tenure for his outspoken views on intelligent design, and Hector Avalos, professor of religious studies at ISU, who has been critical of the teaching of intelligent design in science classrooms.
Those who made it into the theater before it filled up generally responded positively to the film. They greeted the ending credits with applause and, after Gonzalez wrapped up a brief discussion following the film, treated him with a standing ovation.
Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the intelligent design-friendly Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, said he discovered evidence of intelligent design in nature after observing a solar eclipse during a trip to India in 1995.
He said the university denied him tenure in response to his 2004 book The Privileged Planet.
"My work is internationally recognized," Gonzalez said. "Anybody with my background should have had an easy time getting an invitation to a major university."
Instead, he said, universities that looked at his application recognized his name and quickly dismissed him.
In a statement dated June 1, 2007, ISU President Gregory Geoffroy said, "I independently concluded that he simply did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect in a candidate seeking tenure in physics and astronomy."
But in the film, Avalos said he and colleagues "wanted to stop using the name of ISU to justify (intelligent design)."
"I found the film to be really well-rounded and funny," said ISU student Justin Van Soelen.
Another student, Charity White, said she thought it was "crazy that this would happen on campus, at Iowa State of all places."
Not all attendees were sympathetic toward the film. "It was mostly an appeal to emotions," said Zach Nereim, a member of ISU's Atheist and Agnostic Society. "Part of the problem was I went knowing a lot about (how) the movie (was edited)."
The film features interviews from a wide range of academics on both sides of the intelligent design debate, including noted atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
It is especially critical toward some of the ideas professed by proponents of Darwinian evolution. At one point, Stein visits a Nazi death camp to examine connections between eugenics and social Darwinism.
Gonzalez said he was finally offered a position last month at Grove City College, a small Christian school in Pennsylvania, which he has accepted.
"If (professors) value their careers, they should keep quiet about their intelligent design views," he said in the film.
I'm sure Zach says the same thing about Michael Moore's films.
I wonder who would join an atheist "society." Does membership require dues? Do you attend meetings? At meetings do you talk about things in which you don't believe? Do you eat cheese and drink wine at the meetings?
There was applause at the end of our viewing too. Very well done movie, that was surprising in its exposure of the science Gastapo tactics. This was not so much about Darwinism but the way that academia applies it’s Stalinistic Groupthink.
The fact that a scientist can’t even express or think about the earth being created by intellegence gives so called science a black eye. This is how Global Scamming is promoted as well as the rest of Junk Science. Get a Consensus and then enforce it with draconian punishment. How does that fit an open and fair exchange of ideas.
Movie was at times like watching a school film but the ending was superb. Ben Stein is very brilliant and his final interview was genius.
Pray for W and Our Troops
The question is who would join an "Atheist and Agnostic Society". And the answer is "only Atheists". Because the Agnostics don't care. It's only the Atheists who have faith that God doesn't exist, even though they have no proof.
Losers... Why?
Good questions. Does this society have any relation to either The United Atheist Alliance, United Atheist League, or the Allied Atheist Allegiance?
“The fact that a scientist can’t even express or think about the earth being created by intellegence gives so called science a black eye.”
Science is a system of thinking which says that all processes in nature can be understood without reference to supernatural forces. Anyone can imagine the earth being created by a god, but that sort of thinking is not scientific by definition.
By who’s definition, a bunch of Darwinists?? So you think if any scientist who is seeing evidence pointing to Intellegent Design he should be fired.
Glad you are against freedom of thought in academia.
Pray for W and Our Troops
“One man’s “magic” is another man’s engineering. “Supernatural” is a null word.” — Robert A. Heinlein
In terms of BOX OFFICE,
Expelled opened in the highest number of theaters of any Documentary - Political. See here :
http://boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=politicaldoc.htm
At this point in time, 2 days after opening, it already ranked 26th among all documentaries. If life time gross is 10 times opening, it could well to go to number 3 among all documentaries, behind Fahrenheit 9/11 and March of the Penguins.
Also, I find it interesting to compare the ratings some sites give this movie.
Rotten Tomatoes’ critics rank it at 9%
At Box Office Mojo, 66.4% of viewers give it A’s against 28.7% who gave it F’s
It seems that Expelled’s viewers are even more polarized than Fahrenheit 9/11.
As a point of comparison,
66.4% of viewers have given Expelled an A so far compared to 46.5% to Fahrenheit 9/11.
Yeah baby! This movie exceeded my expectations, which were very high. Truthful, expertly crafted and even entertaining! Five stars. A cultural milestone, this movie is one of the most important of the decade.
This definition would preclude the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and even evolutionist speculation.
The borderline between empiricism (or "science") and philosophy is blurry. Of great importance in this definitional debate is the fact that science presupposes metaphysical truths that, historically, derived from Christianity. Such truths include the idea that we can trust the evidence of our senses, that physical laws apply throughout the universe, and that the universe began from nothing. Christianity upholds these pre-scientific truths, while Modernism has abandoned them. The result is the intellectual disease of decontructionism/postmodernism.
“This definition would preclude the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and even evolutionist speculation.”
Why? Extraterrestials would not be supernatural. And evolutionist speculation, why would that be affected?
The difference between science and ID is that science never says that trying to understand something is too difficult if we just rely on natural forces to explain it, so we’ll just throw up our hands and say it must be supernatural. That sort of thinking would have left science where it was in the Middle Ages.
Why? Extraterrestials would not be supernatural.
True, in that sense. But scientists searching for extraterrestrial life are searching for signs of intelligence in radio waves, (non-random patterns, etc.), yet scientists dismiss, out of hand, the manifest evidence of intelligence or intelligent agency in DNA coding, for example, or irreducibly complex natural mechanism.
And evolutionist speculation, why would that be affected?
Evolutionary theory consists almost entirely of speculation regarding the nature and cause of inherently unobservable past phenomena. Evolutionists supposedly derive cause from effect. To determine such causation, scientists must make metaphysical assumptions (that natural laws have operated uniformly forever, etc.), assumptions which fall outside the domain of empiricism.
The difference between science and ID is that science never says that trying to understand something is too difficult if we just rely on natural forces to explain it, so we’ll just throw up our hands and say it must be supernatural.
No! ID is simply the recognition of intelligent agency when its effects are observed. Suppose, for example, that you were exploring a jungle and came upon a library. Would it be reasonable to believe that this library was constructed by intelligent beings at some time, or that the wind blew the library together at random?
Similarly, it is unreasonable to believe that the library's worth of information contained and encoded in human DNA simply "blew together" by chance or by "natural selection," a term with absolutely no explanatory power in this domain. (This problem is recognized by evolutionists, like Dawkins, who propose that aliens "seeded" human life on this planet. But this "solution" merely pushes the problem back to another planet.)
That sort of thinking would have left science where it was in the Middle Ages.
You have it exactly wrong. Buridan's impetus theory followed directly on the Church's dogmatic teaching of "creation from nothing." Newton built on Buridan's theory. It's no accident that science suffered stillbirth's everywhere except in Christendom.
You’re confusing them with the “anarchist’s society”.
Tried to join in college, but couldn’t ever figure out who was organizing the meetings.
Later, I thought about joining the “pessimists club”, but I didn’t think they’d want me. I talked to someone later and they said they gave up on the idea because they didn’t think anyone would want to join.
agnostics are just chickensht atheists.
Oh, my Science!
I see this as an expose’ of every issue that “liberal academia” sides with. No other viewpoints are allowed to be expressed. Usually because any opposing viewpoints point out flaws and holes in the liberal position.
(Yes, I’m saying atheism is a “liberal” position - because it goes counter to our founding principals of Creator, Creation, and God given unalienable rights.)
Well you know if they do eat cheese, it's certainly not Swiss cheese!
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